Wife Wants to Leave – Change Her Mind

If your wife wants to leave you, or has threatened to leave you, it is possible to change her mind. This all starts by changing your behavior and the way you interact with her.

Keep in mind, two-thirds of divorces are initiated by women (walkaway wife syndrome). It’s a crazy statistic. So first, we need to understand why this happens.

5 Reasons Your Wife Wants to Leave

You turned her off

You’re relationship focused

You’re needy and clingy

You’re boring and predictable

You’re acting feminine as opposed to masculine

Before we get into the details on how to change her mind about leaving you, let’s take a look at an email from a reader who is experiencing this problem.

My wife wants to leave me. I noticed that I was very complacent the last few months leading to her distancing herself from me. I was too focused on college and work and not her and she was she was not satisfied in the relationship because I was too busy for her.

You have my deepest sympathies. It is my experience, that a woman’s emotions are like a black hole. You can never satisfy them and they always want more—more emotional support, more time, more investment, more attention. It’s exhausting and never-ending. It’s easy to give more when you have plenty of time and energy (i.e., not distracted by college and work), but it’s very difficult to maintain over the long-run, especially when you’re tired and have other things going on in your life.

Fast forward she got involved with an old college friend who is also divorced. However, she denies it to me and won’t admit. We still spend days together but she will not recommit. I also find her texting this guy while we are out spending time with our daughter. I sometimes become needy and I beg her to take me back.

At least you understand where you’re going wrong in this situation. You see that you have begged and tried to plead to get her back, and that is a natural response. Only this time you need to use a different strategy. Remember, if you keep on doing what you’ve been doing, you’ll get what you’ve always got. In other words, it is your current behavior that has lead you to this situation where your wife wants to leave you.

I’ve done no contact and it works but after a day or two she is blowing up my phone calling me and using our daughter as a weapon against me.

No contact definitely works and is good to apply in a situation like this, but you have to apply no contact the right way. You need to be strong here and don’t let her use your daughter as bait, otherwise, if she knows she can get to you this way she will keep on using this strategy.

Two weeks ago she called me five times in a row and threatened to show up to my job. This was after doing no contact for 3 days.

This doesn’t sound like the actions of a woman who is truly ready to leave you and move on to a relationship with someone else. She’s blowing up your phone and threatening you with your daughter the moment you pull away from her? No, she’s not at the point where she will leave you yet. However, we will get into the reasons why your wife wants to leave you (or says she does).

How can I get my wife back? She wants to go to the beach tomorrow but won’t become intimate with me. As of yesterday after spending the week together she asked for space.

Take Control of the Situation

The first thing to do when you want to stop your wife from leaving you is to take control of the situation. At the moment, she is the one in the driver seat.

She is calling all the shots and she is the one who is threatening to leave. In other words, she has all the power in the relationship and is using her leverage against you.

I actually don’t buy it when she says that you weren’t there for her and weren’t supportive of her.

You don’t have the demeanor of a man who is neglectful or uninterested in his wife–most husbands do care and want to fix the relationship.

I think this all boils down to two things: your attitude around her and her losing attraction for you. These two issues go hand-in-hand.

First the issue of why your wife lost attraction for you and said that she wants to leave you.

In any relationship, attraction comes first and this is followed by love. However, attraction and love are two separate entities.

Attraction, as I mention in my book Atomic Attraction, grows in uncertainty, anxiety and tension—all the uncomfortable emotions that we don’t like dealing with.

Love is different to attraction. Love is a safe, warm, comfortable feeling. It’s the polar opposite of attraction.

Now, as I mentioned, attraction is the first thing to come into the relationship, and it’s also the first thing to leave a relationship.

Your wife can still love you, but if she’s lost attraction for you, then it won’t be long before her desire to stay in the relationship with you also leaves and she starts actually vocalizing her discontent.

So, in the case where your wife wants to leave you, you have to rebuild attraction—that is your number one priority.

This leads us back to the point about attitude. You must present the right attitude in this situation to handle the situation the right way.

Remember, women are reactive, emotional creatures. She feeds off your behavior and responds to your attitude.

If you make her feel attracted to you, she will respond to you in a positive way.

3) If you’re needy and try to beg and plead with your wife to change her mind or give you a second chance, you will only push her away further.

Even though it feels natural to reason with her and try to “talk her into coming back” it’s the last thing you should do.

4) If you’re too focused on her and her emotional “ups and downs” then she won’t trust your emotional stability.

You have to focus on yourself and your mission as a man, which is about self-improvement and moving forward (through education, work, studies, business, health).

If you do this, she will feel as though she can trust you again and lean into you.

In other words, you must be her rock as her volatile female emotions swirl around you, you remain unmoved and unfazed by her behavior.

This allows her to feel your strength and masculinity which draws her back to you.

You have to avoid making these mistakes and be ruthless in your implementation. I know how hard this can be.

Women Respond to Feelings

All a woman cares about is how she’s feeling “in the moment.” It’s selfish and unfair, but this is the way they operate.

It doesn’t matter if you’re in a 3 month relationship or a twenty year marriage, women give little thought to all the honorable actions you did in the past. It’s how you behave right now that counts.

With this in mind, you must be fearless and ruthless when it comes to adjusting your behavior to the current situation without allowing your emotions to overcome you and derail you.

This brings us back to you getting what you want: your wife’s love and affection. This is possible and actually quite easy to do, but it does take a lot of strength and a change in your mindset to accomplish this.

And if your wife is seeing someone else, then this means that her attention has come off you and onto another person.

Why? Because the other guy is a new experience and he is interesting to her. This only happens when you turn your wife off to the point that she loses all interest in you.

Recapture Her Interest

So it’s time to spice things up a bit and bring some much needed sexual tension back into the relationship between the two of you.

In your situation, where your wife wants to leave you and she says she needs space, you have to give this to her and you have to enforce space.

She pulls away from you, you must pull away from her. You must mirror her emotions and actually encourage her to have space.

You must have the attitude that space would not only be good for her, it would be good for you too. Tell her that you need space too and time to do your own thing.

Even if this is not what you want, it is what you need because it will allow you both to reset the relationship dynamic between you.

Remember, attraction grows in space, it doesn’t grow in close proximity.

Your wife isn’t feeling more attraction for you the more time she spends with you, it’s the opposite.

She feels more attraction for you when she’s away from you because she has a chance to miss you and think about you.

This has two advantages: (1) it raises her attraction level for you, and (2) it brings her focus off this other guy and back onto you.

Trust me, if you actively bring space into the relationship, she will put her focus back onto you.

However, if you don’t give her space and allow her to come back to you when she wants, she will feel as though she has complete power over you and she will continue to lose attraction for you.

Increase Your Value

A lot of this is a power play. If your wife feels as though she has more power and value in the relationship, she will lose respect for you.

Women want to feel as though they’re with a high value man who has more power and control than them.

They will test you on this and fight you for power, but they don’t want to win—they want you to prove you are the more high value person.

How do you prove this? Simple. You show her that you’re always prepared to walk away from her and mean it.

Being able to walk away from your wife is the ultimate form of power. You can’t argue or negotiate with someone who has the ability to walk away.

This is about your pride, self-respect and dignity here. It’s also your ONLY way to save this relationship from falling into ruin.

You can get your wife’s attraction, love and respect back, but you need to implement the following strategy and stick with it, even if your wife threatens to leave you.

Steps to Re-Attract her

1) Tell her you love her and appreciate her as a person. You don’t want her to leave, but if that’s what she wants she can.

Tell her you would rather be with someone who loves you and respects you than try to stay with someone who doesn’t care about the relationship.

2) Don’t get dragged into any arguments or try to defend yourself with logic and reason.

It doesn’t matter if you are the most skilled negotiator in the world, you can’t argue with a woman and win because women argue with emotion as opposed to logic.

3) Tell her you think that space is a good idea and you want space too to collect your thoughts and focus on the things that are important to you.

You don’t need to go into any long explanations here, keep it short and simple. If you can move out of the house for a while or get space away from her by staying with a friend or family member do this.

4) Tell her that you’re prepared to work on the relationship for the sake of your family, but if she crosses the line and actually starts a relationship with someone else, you’re walking.

You must mean this and be prepared to back up your actions with words.

5) Don’t message her or call her. She must be the one to initiate all messages and phone calls.

6) Keep the interactions with her as light and as fun as possible. Don’t talk about the relationship and the problems you are both having, she must be the one to bring this up.

If your wife wants to leave, you must show her that you aren’t relationship focused and that you are starting to put your interest elsewhere.

Hard, I know, after you are married to someone, but it is necessary. Instead, try to inject as must lightness and humor into the situation as you can.

7) Don’t seek out her touch or try to get intimate with her anymore. She must be the one to seek out you for intimacy and affection.

Show her that you don’t need her for that anymore. She will wonder why you have changed and she will feel an urgent need to close the distance between the two of you again.

Again, you must be ruthless in your implementation here. If you implement this strategy, your wife won’t leave you, but you need to stick to the plan and don’t break it.

How to Deal with Kickback

You can see that no contact works, the proof is in the pudding. It’s just a question of sticking to the plan with ruthless precision.

Once you implement this strategy, expect some kickback from your wife. Here is the best way to counter these reactions and initiate resistance:

1) She threatens to leave you and take the children. You must be prepared to call her bluff here.

Tell her that’s fine because I will fight you for custody in the courts, but I’m not prepared to stay in a relationship with someone who doesn’t love me.

If you can do this, you demonstrate tremendous control over yourself and the situation and raise your value exponentially.

Note: Seek legal advice from a good divorce lawyer where you live. Collect evidence and keep records of text messages and phone calls (record conversations if legally allowed) between the two of you. Anything that will back you up and help you in court (if things go south) will save you a lot of trouble down the line.

2) She calls you and tells you that she doesn’t want space anymore. She wants to try and fix things between the two of you.

That sounds nice doesn’t it? But don’t make it too easy for her too soon. I’ve seen lots of guys fall into this trap time and time again.

Instead, tell her that you also need space and time to work things out in your head.

Limit the amount of time you see her and speak to her. If you were at 100% before, bring it down to 50%.

At the first sign of disrespect, or if she says she wants to leave you again, pull away and go back to no contact.

3) She tries to blame you for the failure of the relationship. This is a classic response.

If your wife wants to leave you (or says she does), there’s a good chance she’ll put the blame on you.

You weren’t there, you didn’t pay enough attention to her, you were emotionally abusive, you worked too much, etc.

Instead, throw it back on her and tell her: “I want this relationship to work, it’s you who wants out so don’t put this on me.”

If she continues to blame you, don’t even try to engage her in an argument simply tell her, “You want to see indifference and a lack of care? You got it babe.” then walk away or put the phone down.

Show her that no matter what she throws at you, you can’t be phased.

Behavior Determines Outcome

This is going to be tough to implement because it means overcoming a lot of emotion and acting in a way that is counter-intuitive. But this is an important growth opportunity for you.

You will grow stronger from this incident and if you implement this the right way and adjust your behavior (recorrecting the masculine/feminine polarity between the two of you), your relationship will be stronger and better for it.

As a side note, it’s important to treat your wife like your girlfriend to keep the flames of attraction alive.

It doesn’t matter if you have kids or she’s your wife. You must treat her like your girl, your babe, your lover, your girlfriend.

Keep the relationship fun and light and playful. Don’t spend all your time on her. Make her crave your presence and miss you (just like she used to in the beginning when you first started dating).

Actively bring space back into the relationship too to super-charge attraction and bring her focus back onto you. Remember, men are supposed to be mission focused, not relationship focused.

If you need an urgent response to fix your situation, please don't hesitate to book an email or phone consultation with me and I'll get back to you ASAP.

Best, Chris

PS. If you want to create INTENSE attraction with women, I highly recommend you get a copy of my book Atomic Attraction (Kindle/Paperback/Audio). Everything you need to know about creating, building, and maintaining attraction can be found within these pages.

PPS. If a girl's pulled away from you or left you, the Get Her Back (Action Plan) will give you an instant solution to your problem. This guide will show you the fastest and easiest way to get her back and keep her.

Emergency Help

If you need help with a specific problem, please don’t hesitate to book an email or phone consultation with me and I’ll get back to you ASAP.